<p>DH and I enjoyed SOM last night. We are not MT people but we do love musicals. Besides, how often do we get to take time off from our busy schedules on a Thursday to sit together with a glass of wine in front of a warm fire to watch something that isn’t obnoxious TV?</p>
<p>^^^^^Like.</p>
<p>If NBC is going to do more of this in the future, I’ll watch! There are many many Broadway shows that I either never saw on B’way or would love to see again, without paying gobs of money for the privilege.</p>
<p>I was curious about the von Trapp family after reading this. Biography did a show about them and it is available in 3 parts on youtube. <a href=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ifkDgcypE[/url]”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ifkDgcypE</a> It’s interesting and I recommend watching it if you’d like to learn the true story. </p>
<p>Amazing to think the family got so little money for this! Shows what happens when you don’t have a lawyer 
</p>
<p>One part that’s interesting is how Mary Martin got cast. Mary Martin saw the German movie and it was her idea to make into a stage musical! She was a huge star at the time and she selected it for her next project. (BTW, someone made a nasty comment about Rodgers upthread–Martin loved him because she did not have a great range and Rodgers wrote music for her which intentionally used her limited range and didn’t go beyond it. (That’s not in the video–read it elsewhere.))</p>
<p>Hey, our local community children’s theatre had an African-American Von Trapp child about 25 years ago! Under the xiggi formula, African-Americans would get very few roles and that’s just plain wrong. Do you hate Natalie Wood in West Side Story too? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What do you base that on? I’d say that 2 out of 3 are prettier–is that why? Maria Von Trapp was an excellent singer. In their day, the family was a very, very popular act. </p>
<p>And…after watching the Biography documentary, I am really impressed with the family’s opposition to Hitler. Georg was offered a commission as a naval officer. The oldest son, a recent med school grad, was offered a fairly senior position–replacing a Jewish doctor. Instead of spending his life doing what he trained for, he traveled around for many years singing. The Nazi party was very interested in the family.
'</p>
<p>lilmom - were you at my house last night! My H and I also sat in front of the fire with a bottle of wine while we watched SOM.</p>
<p>H was of course much more forgiving than me of Carrie’s performance. I loved Audra - my D has seen her on stage and met her several times. </p>
<p>soozievt - like you I am so happy this was a success for NBC and that we may get more live theatre in the future!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is a stretch to find any historical truth in The Sound of Music. Yes, Nazis existed and there was a war, but that’s about it.</p>
<p>I seem to have the same reaction as most of you.</p>
<p>The kids were great. Audra MacDonald was wonderful. I enjoyed the actors playing Elsa and Max. Carrie’s singing was good.</p>
<p>But…her acting was terrible. Even if Rolf is a college student, he looked considerably older than Liesl, and as DH wondered during the time he watched, why wasn’t he blond. I thought Moyer’s acting was uneven and his singing weak. </p>
<p>Given that it was a live performance, there weren’t too many gaffes. I saw Carrie lose her footing in the opening song, but it didn’t throw her off. She did lose her breath during Do-Re-Mi, but who wouldn’t with all that dancing. I noticed her looking at her right hand for her wedding ring, but maybe that was technically accurate. The biggest gaffe to me was the scene with the Admiral and Georg when someone didn’t get their lines or cues right. </p>
<p>Regardless of the good ratings, I hope NBC doesn’t choose to show this on an annual basis. Once was enough for me.</p>
<p>I think one of the reasons I’m not jumping on the whole bash the production train is because, up until I watched ‘the making of’ video earlier this week, I had pretty low expectations for this production going into it. But when I saw ‘the making of’ video, I realized there was some talent there. </p>
<p>I also think I am not being so judgmental because I didn’t pay anything to see this show. It didn’t cost me a thing; what I wonder is how I would have reacted had I paid $100/ticket to see it on Broadway. I would have had much higher expectations, and expected more for my money (although if this particular production had been on Broadway, and I’d heard all the criticism of Underwood, I probably wouldn’t have gone to see it), and would have been very upset with the casting. But this didn’t cost me a dime, so I was willing to give it a chance, and overlook certain weaknesses. What I hoped it would do, is expose a whole new generation to the story, who might not otherwise see it, either because they don’t have the discretionary funds to fork out for theater, or they don’t ordinarily watch musicals, but did because Carrie Underwood was in it. So I guess it doesn’t bother me as much that it turned out as it did, because I never saw myself in the demographic that NBC was hoping to reach through this production. So I was pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>My niece, who works for a Broadway producer, said of the wedding dress, “The poor didn’t want that one either.” Ugh. It wasn’t period, it was ugly, it didn’t fit. You’d think they could hit at least one of those goals. Rolf’s pants, Elsa’s palazzo pants… there was a lot of costume fail for such a big budget (little of which, apparently, was spent on lighting and sound).</p>
<p>CF, if you link this article, then scroll down for some of the tweets, you’ll see someone reference the wedding dress. It’s kind of funny…</p>
<p>[NBC’s</a> ‘Sound of Music Live’: Hollywood’s best reactions - MSN TV News](<a href=“MSN”>MSN)</p>
<p>Nancy Kerrigan’s costume fits her, though.</p>
<p>Just an FYI (which will disappoint many who hoped this would not happen), NBC has said they will air this one more time before Christmas, and would love to see this re-aired annually around the holidays in the future.</p>
<p>We won’t see race neutral casting in Porgy and Bess. The Gershwin estate stipulates that the cast must be all black when performed in North America.</p>
<p>I am very glad SOM was a ratings success, as maybe it will be an incentive for more musicals. However, I struggled to get through it and did other things around the house while it was on. CU’s acting was pretty bad, but I loved Audra McDonald and others. It had to be tough on CU to be surrounded by some amazing and talented Broadway veterans! I did have a problem with the color-blind casting, although I know it is all a matter of personal opinion. Others mentioned Ragtime, Porgy and Bess, etc. as shows where race is an integral part, and I would have included this one. Race and religion were such an integral part of the Nazi agenda that casting a black nun seems completely out of place. I also felt that having Rolf as a blond would really have emphasized the point that the Hitler regime valued “the superiority of the Aryian race-the master race” and help explain how a 17 year old boy (who looked WAY older) could be swept into the whole farce. While I know the SOM is not historically accurate, I still feel the Nazi take-over of Austria is such a big part of the story that it needs to be reflected accurately. That being said, I can’t think of anyone who could have played the part of the Mother Abess as well as Audra McDonald!</p>
<p>Good points about the color blind casting thing which I am not a fan of but really didn’t mind here so much. Agree, about Rolf, as well. </p>
<p>Pretty much, this was as expected. Not so good. And mostly because of Carrie Underwood, unfortunately. Perhaps, being surrounded by so much talent made her performance appear even worse. She was a Maria you could see on any high school or community theater stage surrounded by Broadway veterans. It was uncomfortable to watch at times.</p>
<p>It sure did not bother me that the Mother was not white. But then D went to a multiethnic school and the rainbow performed on stage. I wish I could unread that ‘moronic’ comment. (219).</p>
<p>Did anyone else notice the big difference in what Rolf does in this production and the movie? </p>
<p>In this production, Liesl steps in front of her father and Rolf can’t shoot her. He then shouts out “Captain, they are NOT here!” </p>
<p>In the movie, Captain Von Trapp taunts Rolf verbally when he finds them. Rolf then yells out “Captain, they’re here!”</p>
<p>Makes Rolf a very different character!</p>
<p>Maria should have made her wedding dress from the curtains! And was it my imagination, or was Maria wearing ginormous sapphire and diamond earrings to the wedding? Not sure if she got an early wedding present from the Baron, borrowed them from the Baroness, or if some recent novice brought them along the abbey.</p>
<p>I was thrown by the casting of Audra McDonald, but I think that says something discreditable about me rather than the casting decision. All doubt disappeared the first time she opened her mouth.</p>
<p>I loved the mixed-race Cinderella a few years ago. I guess I just like Rodgers and Hammerstein (also the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter). Has anyone else seen the Hugh Jackman version of Oklahoma? Yum.</p>
<p>Okay - all this talk of Rolf means you’re asking for this. Mad TV knew how to push the envelope and this is one of my favorite things. Alternate endings for The Sound of Music. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with the poster who said they went in with low expectations, I wasn’t expecting “Broadway on TV”. I would bet pretty good money that had it not been Carrie Underwood, it would have been someone else equally famous from the pop or movie acting world. There were irritating things with the production, the wedding dress got me, and the lighting and sound were really poor and there were questionable calls, but I am not surprised, if you figure how few live performances are done. Years ago they did something like this, there was a live performance of “Mr. Roberts” with Robert Hayes and Kevin Bacon and Marilu Henner, but I think that was done in front of an audience at a theater, which is quite different. </p>
<p>One of the things that makes this so difficult is not having an audience to feed off of, actor friends of mine who have done both recorded and live work say without an audience, it isn’t the same thing, the dynamics are different. I wonder if with Carrie Underwood if that was part of the problem, she is a performer, and though she obviously does studio work, she also is a live performer, and doing what she did without an audience might have been difficult for her. </p>
<p>One thing to note, for those comparing it to Les Mis, is even though the actors sang those parts live while they were filming, the final output was mixed and post recording cleaned up, something you cannot do with a live broadcast like this, so it is hard to compare, any more than it is to compare it to the movie, which had the benefits of being recorded in a recording studio (it was not sung live from what I know) and so forth…</p>
<p>I am not a Carrie Underwood fan in her singing career (not against her, either, just not my thing), but I thought her singing was decent and conveyed things pretty well. I give her credit for even attempting this, stepping into the shoes of an iconic movie (relatively few people even my age probably know of the Mary Martin recording) with someone like Julie Andrews whose voice is legendary took a lot of courage, and she had to know people would have their knives out, the MT pros jealous because a ‘pop star’ got the role, and just people looking to bring someone down, quite honestly she could have gone out there and done an incredible job and a lot of people would throw knives at it (note, I on the other hand also recognize that much of the criticism on here is pretty valid, this wasn’t a world class production comparatively). </p>
<p>Comparisons are funny things, i remember reading a book by a cast member of the original cast of Hair, who after they left the show was told by someone how great the show still was, and she said “it is nothing compared to the original cast”, and then she realized something, she remembered mentioning to someone she had seen “Man of La Mancha” at the time, and liked it, and the person responded “It is nothing compared to what it was with Richard Kiley in it”…point being that compared to what Julie Andrews or Mary Martin did this probably doesn’t stack up, but on the other hand it can be enjoyable for its own reasons.</p>